A Wave Of Awareness

In the world of surfing, picking a wave is crucial. You see, it has to be big enough to carry you and sustain your ride for as long as possible for you to pull off a good amount of stunts. Even more important, you need to ride your own wave, in other words, a surfer needs to claim the wave as his own and ride it first, hence clearing the way for his acrobatic scheme. 

Rarely does more than one surfer ride the same wave, and when it happens one is left in the trail of the other, either mimicking the path or ends up crashing as a result of the lack of creative solutions. Only a gigantic wave can encompass more than one surfer successfully. And he, who rides in the trail of others incessantly, forgets how to improvise and innovate.

Tunisia may not be the right answer. It is not our wave.

The grandeur of the event is by all means a breakthrough of epic proportions, one that can hardly be described, let alone comprehended. Is it inspiring? God, yes. Is it the solution to Egypt’s problems? Not directly.

We’ve seen the Tunisians assume a wave, ride it with excellence and pull off a number of acrobatic stunts along the way. And while it is only fair that we give them a hefty round of applause, many, just sufficed with a clap or two, others even thought possible to jump on the already crashing Tunisian wave. 

The Tunisian experience is far beyond that, and so are we.

Hearing a man scream his country’s name alongside the word “Freedom” is beyond touching, I’m actually envious, and I’d want nothing more than to be able to do the same. But it doesn’t have to be in the same fashion, because Egypt differs than others. We can pull off our own revolution on our own terms, inspired by others perhaps, but we should ride our own wave. We can ride the next wave, the next big one, following the Tunisian one and instigated by it.

Let’s not only support Tunisia, the moral Arab solidarity is nothing but welcome, but we can do more than change our profile pictures, or write statuses. Furthermore, we should know precisely why we’re supporting a cause, rather than following the general peer-pressure.

If you’ve consciously chosen to support El Baradei, victims of the Turkish flotilla, victims of Doueiqa, Khaled Sa’eed, Christian Muslim Unity, The Tunisian popular revolution and many other causes, based on reasoning and understanding, then hats off to you, if you’ve even supported the Facebook campaign against child abuse out of conviction, then kudos as well. If you have, however, followed the general peer pressure, and supported a number of issues just because they were the new “online fad”, then why not question what you support, and see whether or not your choices would change? 

While on one hand, the illusion of a Christian Muslim feud has created anguish among us, Egyptians, Tunisian notions of “change” have provided hope. They have showed us that authority can bleed; the Tunisians have given us awareness. And for that I am very thankful, and that is precisely why it is recommended that we seek awareness, and perhaps through it we can pull off our very own change-driven stunt.

Express yourself, and support what you will, just do it out of awareness. Do everything knowingly. More often than not, causes have been born only to be shot dead a few weeks later, due to lack of awareness and reasoning.

We need to question, reach conviction and act as we may. We just need to know.

“Practice what you preach”

 

And that is precisely what CAMPUS will try to do. This blog will not be confined to editors and contributors only, it is for everyone, it will be our way of voicing what this generation really has to say. This blog is our way of creating one big wave of awareness. So, please, send us whatever you have to say, and we’ll publish it in one of our sections. This blog will be one big discussion forum, and through it, each will be able to choose his wave, and perhaps even teach others.

Best,

W.